The Argosy — page 97: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

84 Divided. ‘We will make it more ship-shape by degrees,” Raoul had said, when first he brought home his bride. ‘‘ Meantime, Denise, you must tell me what you would like done, just as it strikes you; and though you may have to wait a little, it all shall be done some day.” As for companionship, Madame de Kériadec soon discovered that such society as might be obtained in the neighbourhood was so absolutely uncongenial to her as to be worse than none. About four miles off was the little primitive town of Andierne, where Denise went to church on Sundays, and after service had to speak a few polite words to Monsieur le Maire and other respectable residents of Andierne. Denise, though she might be bored by her provincial neighbours, was by far too friendly and kind-hearted to show it; but these good people of -Andierne, with their narrow-minded pruderies and self-satisfied ignorance of the world were not en- couraging. They could not forget that Madame de Kériadec had been an actress—‘ only for a few months, it is true,” said Made- moiselle Mathilde. ‘‘ Mais———!” and that unfinished sentence con- | tained all manner of vague insinuations that continued to rankle in the provincial mind, to whom Mademoiselle Mathilde, who had been three times to Paris in the course of her forty years, was an un- questioned authority. She was Denise’s nearest neighbour, and from the first she had looked askance at young Madame de K ériadec. Did not the latter come to church dressed out in the daintiest of tight-fitting Parisian costumes, wearing shoes with the most perilously high heels and pointed toes, and hats that were more suited to gay | Boulevards than to a sober country parish? Mademoiselle Mathilde glared at these tokens of vanity from under her severe black bonnet and veil with a feeling of righteous satisfaction in the shapeless simplicity of her own waistless jacket and flat-soled, elastic-side, | boots ; and every turn of Denise’s pretty head, every one of the quick, girlish movements, was described as stage trickery and affectation. “Pretty, you say!” she would remark with a sniff. ‘“ Yes, a | aressed up doll. Do you not find that she is very maniéré, this Parisian actress?” : | However, up to a certain period, the most malicious tongues could mot find a breath of scandal connected with the new Chatelaine of ‘Camper, and public opinion began to veer round in her favour. But by this time Denise, who, though ignorant of the cause, had some percep- tion of the coolness of her neighbours, had given up trying to make herself pleasant to ungracious strangers who, at their best, could afford leer neither amusement nor interest ; and it became evident to her that it was at Camper itself that she must look for distraction. As for her dainty trousseau, that was completely wasted in a dis- ‘trict where her dear little high-heeled shoes and lace-trimmed skirts ‘were ruined after one walk in the muddy lanes, or over the sands and rocks by the sea; and where all the women wore coifs and aprons and sabots ! CORDNICLOOO KS aE) (@)